Voting machines have been used for years to accept, record and tabulate votes cast during an election so that election results can be available in a matter of a few hours instead of the several hours or days that were once necessary. Voting machines have eliminated some voting irregularities, such as the problem of stuffing ballot boxes, that existed with paper ballots. More modem voting machines can tabulate votes and have election results available within a few minutes after the polls are closed. While modern voting machines speed the voting process, problems still exist.
One problem is ensuring that the person voting is actually the registered person entitled to vote and not an impostor. Sometimes, voter identification is not checked at the polling place. At other times, identification is verified by comparing a voter's vehicle driver's license or passport against the registered voter list. While this process is helpful, a driver's license picture does not always clearly resemble the person, and it does not guard against a forged driver's license or passport. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that it would be highly desirable to have a form of identification that is more definitive than a driver's license or passport photograph.
Another problem is ensuring that a voter votes only once. Sometimes, a voter's name is checked against the registered voter list at the single polling place where the voter is entitled to vote. While helpful, it does not eliminate the problem because a person's name may fail to appear on the voter's list for a number of reasons. When a name fails to appear, a voting official calls to determine whether a person is entitled to vote. When a person changes addresses resulting in a change of polling places and his name is omitted from the list at the new polling place, a call is made and the person allowed to vote at the new place. Sometimes, when the name is absent from the list at the new voting place, it is still on the list at the old voting place which makes it possible for a person to vote twice. In some places, a voter may vote at any one of several polling places thereby creating the potential for a voter to cast multiple votes. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that it would be highly desirable to have a master voter list to which individual voter lists at polling sites are linked to prevent duplicate voting.